As I have previously stated, I believe that there needs to be some form of moratorium between evangelical churches and Bible Colleges in our country. We need to ask some tough questions. Who exactly is serving who? Who are many of our Bible Colleges actually accountable to? What figures do we have that show us in real terms just how successful these places are at ensuring people leave to go into full-time pastoral ministry of some level? How can a Bible College realistically assess a person in terms of their spiritual character, devotion to the Lord, prayer life, love for the saints, perseverance through trial etc? As John Frame points out:
The academic machinery is simply incapable of measuring the things that really matter – a man’s obedience to God’s Word, his perseverance in prayer, his self control, his ability to rule without pride, the spiritual power of his preaching in the conversion of men and the edification of the church.
It is my contention that a man who comes to me with a degree from a Bible College is not necessarily any more spiritual use in ministering to housing schemes than a man with latent spiritual gifting and a mixture of on the job training and ongoing theological learning and assessment. It is laughable to even suggest that because somebody has a handle on Greek or Church History that, somehow, they are better prepared and more qualified to face the temptations and trials of spiritual battle in the coalface of a housing scheme. It is my experience that, with few exceptions, I have to help people ‘unlearn’ the Bible College mentality of academia and help them to work on the practical realities of Godly living in the field. Dr. John Frame, 40 years ago now, makes an interesting proposal.
Let us then consider a positive alternative. A church or denomination establishes a kind of “Christian community” where teachers, ministerial candidates, and their families live together, eat together, work together; where they all really know each other; where their lives (their habits, their tempers, their talents, their loves, their hates, their struggles, their sanctity and lack of it) are known to all. The teachers and older students would thus be “examples” to the newer and the newer would be under the scrutiny of the older. The community is not a monastic escape from the world; rather it is mobilized for the purpose of establishing and nurturing churches throughout its locality. Each teacher, student, wife and child is to be deeply involved in the work of developing churches, through visitation, neighborhood Bible studies, public meetings, street preaching, and then (as churches are established) through Sunday School teaching, preaching church youth work, church administration, etc.
This, to my mind, encapsulates what we are trying to achieve through Porterbrook Training and our on the job internships here at NCC. I know lots of other churches that are now following suit or have been engaged in this approach for many years. As I have already stated elsewhere, with this system we get to (1) train our people theologically at a very good level and (2) we get the bonus of observing them, coaching them and discipling them in the particular field they want to ultimately serve in. So, they get to learn and grow from actual practitioners rather than text books and through writing theoretical papers. In Frames alternative to Bible College, he envisions the following:
There will be no set “number of hours” after which a man is entitled to graduation. Teachers and older students involved in teaching ,will meet from time to time for intensive evaluation of each student’s progress in life, skills and knowledge. These meetings will determine whether a man will be dropped from the program (either because of doubt concerning his call to the ministry or because of doubt concerning the ability of the program to deal with the student’s problems), or whether he will be promoted to new levels of responsibility, or whether he will be “graduated” and recommended to the churches for the ministry. No man will “graduate” unless the teachers are convinced that he has the character, skills and knowledge that the Scriptures require of church officers.
At Niddrie we are constantly developing our programme to ensure that people are (1) constantly getting good feedback. That means both positive and negative constructive criticism. (2) They are subject to a high level of spiritual accountability with intensive one-to-ones with a designated accountability partner and/or mentor. (3) People are given opportunities to serve in a variety of practical areas, including teaching and are given wide ranging feedback which will help them to nurture and develop gifting. (4) The wheat and the chaff are ‘sifted’ through the intensity of the process as underlying character defects and sins are brought to light and sought to be dealt with. The problems usually appear when a person is designated unfit for ministry by the leaders of the local body and so they move on to a new church and turn up with the intention of going to ‘Bible College’. I have lost count of the many people over the years who have randomly turned up at church for a few weeks, asked to meet me, and then informed me of their desire to go to Bible College. When I ask them what the pastor of their ‘home’ church thinks I usually get a reply along the lines of, ‘Oh, he doesn’t understand me…that church is awful’ or words to that effect. I personally tell them that I won’t be signing off on a reference until they have been with me for a few years and I have seen some sort of evidence of spiritual life, growth and leadership gifting. They are usually off down the road to the next church on their hit list, doubtless writing me off as one of those ‘terrible pastors’ as well!
If, as evangelicals, trying to encourage and grow a new generation of leaders to work in our inner city housing schemes and council estates then we must face the facts that Bible College is not the future for many of our people. So, what is? My aim is not to annoy people but to help us to think. Bible Colleges aren’t going to do this. They have a vested interest in their own self-propagation. They’re not going to lower academic standards even if a man has excellent spiritual credentials. They are going to fail him because they have to. Well, there’s part time courses, you may say! There are. But why would they be any more superior to initiatives like Porterbrook which, in my opinion, puts theological training back where it belongs. In the hands of local churches and local church leadership. Please be clear that I am not advocating the end of Christian scholarship but what use are scholars in training pastors and housing scheme church planters? Not much I can assure you. Their benefit lies more broadly than that. I think that today, more than ever, if we are to grow future leaders who will be effective in housing schemes then we must develop theological ‘hot houses’ in our local congregations, work at sharing resources like Porterbrook, share experiences and lessons learned between local church practitioners and offer valuable hands-on experience where possible. If I am going to send my best people anywhere it will be to plant another congregation or grow them into teaching and leadership positions in order to train others also.
Still thinking it through.
niddriepastor 
Hi, Mez. I mostly agree, even though I have not one but two pieces of paper that say I know what I’m supposed to know. Since you’re still thinking it through, I’ll throw a few thoughts into the mix.
Shouldn’t we start with Scriptures? What do the Scriptures say a man must be? I can’t find Bible School or Seminary graduate in I Timothy 3 or Titus 1 (or II Timothy 4:1-5 or I Peter 5, for that matter). It just isn’t there.
A man must know the Word, and be able to use it to silence those who are contrary (Titus 1:9). He has to be able to teach (I Tim 3:2), and not just teach, but to teach well enough to train other teachers (2 Tim 2:2). He has to be skilled in learning the Word (2 Tim 2:15). Those all speak to quality education, of course, and the last one shows the value in learning the original languages as well. However, I don’t see Timothy being told to teach Hebrew to the Greeks in his church, so knowledge of original languages is perhaps often overrated.
Can a man learn what he needs to match those qualifications without going to school? Most of the theology I learned was from dead guys who wrote a long time ago, and I don’t think you have to go to school to learn theology from them. Dead guys aren’t very good at helping us with the other qualifications, but neither, in many respects, are the living guys at a lot of schools.
Benefit to schools? One of my professors said that we didn’t really need to be at school to learn. He said that we were paying him, not really to teach us, but to provide external discipline/motivation to push us to study. If you need that external motivation, it doesn’t mean you are hopeless and won’t make it in ministry. It does mean you have issues to deal with beyond academic knowledge to get you ready for ministry.
I’m not down on schools. I would not agree with one thought that seems to come through in your writing (whether intended or not) — that schools are contrary to housing scheme ministry. I think a quality education is important wherever you are going to minister, however you get that education. I don’t see any reason that knowing Greek would make anyone any less able to work in a housing scheme. If a guy is proud of his knowledge, he’s not likely to be successful in God’s eyes wherever he works. If he is humble, God can use him anywhere.
Boiling it down, four main statements.
1. A solid and working Bible knowledge is required.
2. A formal Bible education can be a valuable thing
3. A formal Bible education just addresses a few of the Biblical qualifications for ministry,
4. A formal Bible education is only one way to gain a solid and working Bible knowledge.
As usual, I’m rambling on too long. 🙂
Interesting thoughts, as I have a couple of friends feeling call into ministry (I’d like to add here that both are already heavily involved in church ministry already) and are having to choose a bible college to go to as part of their training to be vicars/ministers.
I attended a church for a number of years and one of the leaders did not have any degree in theology, and he was a fantastic discipler and evangelist. Really that had come from being well supported by people in his learning of God and stepping out in faith for the vision that God had given him for ministry.
I totally agree with your idea of accountability and internship, and as a leader of a Christian ministry, I’m glad to hear you mention about actually having time to KNOW a person before giving a reference. I too often get what I call ‘token’ references for people written by someone who barely knows them in reality, and the work we do is not easy – it requires on the job training, constant learning, pastoral support and most of all – commitment.
Hi Mez,
We’ve not met, though I’ve known of you through David Dennis at Charlotte since you first arrived at Niddrie, and I gather you know two of my colleagues, David Smith and Wes White. That gives away the fact that I teach at International Christian College over in Glasgow…but I hope that doesn’t disqualify me from contributing to the on-going debate. Clearly I’m convinced of the validity of the Bible College experience as part of the preparation for ministry or I wouldn’t have been working at one for the last thirteen years, since returning from ten years of cross-cultural ministry in Japan. I’m privileged to work with a great bunch of colleagues who have all ministered before joining the staff team here…and we are still committed to ministering, both because we all know the dangers of getting out of touch with the challenges faced by those in ministry and because for us we don’t see a dichotomy between our call to serve the church through theological education here and our call to serve in our local congregations or the wider Christian community. So I guess it’s because I feel there’s a high degree of caricaturing of Bible colleges in your articles (especially post 3) that I wanted to write some kind of response. Partly this is because though I know that you’re in favour of good theological education (am I right that you’ve done a Masters as well as your initial BA?) I worry that your posts will be misread by those who are actually quite opposed to a thoughtful approach to Christian faith and will just become further ammunition to support an unhelpful Christian anti-intellectualism that I fear is out there. More importantly though I think that you do raise some important points which Bible colleges need to reflect on, and while I don’t agree that we have “a vested interest in [our] own self-propagation” (really too harsh and unfair a comment), we do need to ensure that as colleges we are being as effective as we can in helping to nurture Christians in their thinking, in their spiritual life and in their development of their gifts. We need to listen to critique from different parts of the church, and need to be prepared to hear hard things. So, first up, let me agree with you that churches and colleges need to talk – so give us a call.
But I also want to pick up on a few other points you made. You were obviously really hurt by your own college not giving you anything more than an academic reference. All I can say is that we do provide rounded references for our students as they move out into ministry, and it’s one of the great things about my job here, as we see folk moving out to put into practice what they’ve learnt. The other colleges I know will all do the same, as we all recognise that academic training is only part of preparation for ministry – spiritual development and practical equipping are also key. That, along with our commitment to evangelical truth, is what distinguishes us from university theological departments. But we also recognise that we don’t produce the finished article. That might sound like an excuse, but it’s not. Because when you think about it, when are any of us ever “finished”? I’ve been in “ministry” of various forms for thirty plus years – in fact, ever since I came to realise that knowing Jesus and making Him known was the most important thing there could ever be. I’ve “ministered” as a student, as a church intern, as a Bible college student, as a missionary, as a student again, as a teacher and as a preacher. And am I the finished product? Of course not, and I’m sure you’d say the same (definitely about me, and probably about yourself!). So, maybe what’s important is not so much where and how people are learning, training and being equipped, but that they realise that they need to keep learning and letting God shape them. That shaping comes through formal study, whether for a qualification or not, through practice, through mentoring, through making mistakes, through all the different ways in which God speaks to us, including in our pre-Christian stage. And it’s not always going to be easy or painless. It seems to me that from the bit of your story that you share in your posts that your Bible college experience actually worked, more than you acknowledge – there WAS someone there to pastor you, you didn’t lose your passion for ministry, you ended up in the place of God’s calling for you, and you learned enough to both church plant and get involved in teaching in a programme of training. And I would guess that many of your fellow students who were at college with you really benefited from both the formal training and from the informal mentoring from the “mix of women, youth workers, children’s workers, missionaries and evangelists” precisely because that’s what the students themselves were going to be, namely a mix of youth workers, children’s workers, missionaries and evangelists… and possibly even women! You say that they were “of no help in terms of preparing me spiritually for the world of pastoral ministry”, but as you’ve said, in that staff team there was someone there to help you. And that’s the role that Bible colleges should have. We’re not just here to prepare people for one kind of ministry. You’re clearly utterly committed to inner city urban church planting, and passionate about the Porterbrook model as the training model for that. I reckon that urban church planting is about the toughest form of ministry anywhere, apart from ministry in some Islamic contexts, and it needs specialist training, so something like Porterbrook might well be the way to go. But is it for everybody? It seems to me that a gathering of experienced scholar/practitioners with a range of ministry experience, which a Bible college staff ought to be, can offer preparation for the range of ministries which serving the kingdom now calls for, as well as giving the depth of Biblical and theological study that everyone needs. We have a guy who is enrolled in a training programme similar to Porterbrook but who is also currently doing some part-time study with us in the area of cross-cultural ministry preparation, because that isn’t offered in his other programme. Bible colleges have to be broad enough to prepare a range of people for a diversity of ministries, so we often can’t give the focussed training that people may need to get really good at their own specific ministry. But, as I said above, we’re only a part of the forming and shaping that God takes people through. Maybe we all need to ask ourselves what being part of the Body of Christ means in terms of preparing and equipping people for ministry or ministries, to respect each other’s callings within that and to seek to work together as best we can. The Body needs eyes, ears, heads, hands, feet and everything else, if we are truly to grow up into Him who is the Head.
Sorry, this began to turn into an essay as I was writing. Time to stop here. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hey David
Thanks for taking the time to write. It’s a bit of an epic so I don’t think I have the time right now to reply fully. Maybe an email would be more helpful? What do you think?
Can I just say off the bat that I have no idea who the 2 men you mentioned are. I have never heard of them so perhaps you are confusing me with somebody else. I used to have an associate here called Jez – are you thinking of him? Regardless, I have limited experience of ICC, although I do know some of your students and I have no axe to grind against your institution( 1 works for me now).
I am not sure how to respond because I am not actually sure what point you were making. Reading between the lines, we agree that churches and colleges ought to talk more. I am not advocating anti intellectualism – in fact the exact opposite – I am just questioning the current system in place. I don’t feel I have caricatured Bible Colleges at all and having read back over article 3 it is in fact more about what we do as a church rather than anything else. I apologise if the self propagation comment offended you – clumsy language, although my point stands. No Bible college is going to agree with what I have written. They cannot (and, realistically, nor should they) and your response proves my point.
Your main body seems concerned with my personal experience. I did think long and hard before putting that in for fear of people questioning my real motivation behind the piece. In hindsight, I could have left it out. However, I was clear in my own hypocrisy, I believe, in one of the articles, so I don’t think I was being completely unfair in my critique. I’m really struggling to find an area of disagreement with you in the main because I think my articles make the points you are raising. So I don’t know if I am misunderstanding you or you are misunderstanding me or if we’re agreeing with one another!
You are right that people need to be prepared for a wide array of ministries in different ways. I agree. I am writing for my context trying to grow indigenous leaders. I think I was clear about that point throughout. If the current theological training system is weighted against anybody in our country then it is against the less educated classes. So, I won’t apologise for making ripples in the middle class pool in an effort to make our voice heard. Granted, some of the arguments may lack finesse but that doesn’t make them any more illegitimate.
God bless you in what you are doing. Again, thanks for taking the time to write.
Mez
Thanks Mez for taking the time to reply to my epic. And I agree with you that we’re not far off agreement. I think I wanted to defend Bible colleges not so much against what you actually said, but about how people might pick up on what they thought you said. In essence I don’t think Bible college training is the only way to train leaders, but I do think they still have a lot going for them…as long as we are aware of our limitations. I take your point about the class thing, though again I’d want to argue, and this is often from our experience here, that small institutions with a high degree of academic support can actually help people develop their academic potential, without wasting their spiritual potential.
Sorry that you’ve not met Wes or David – it mus be Jez that they were meaning when they were telling me about Niddrie. (Mez, Jez, you can see where the confusion comes from.)
This discussion will no doubt run and run in the wider church community. Maybe what I would say is that as we come to review our programmes in a wee while it would be good to have you in on the conversation. Hope you’d be up for that.
Thanks again.
God bless.